Identification and measurement of intensive economic growth in a Roman imperial province.

ABSTRACT: A key question in economic history is the degree to which preindustrial economies could generate sustained increases in per capita productivity. Previous studies suggest that, in many preindustrial contexts, growth was primarily a consequence of agglomeration. Here, we examine evidence for three different socioeconomic rates that are available from the archaeological record for Roman Britain. We find that all three measures show increasing returns to scale with settlement population, with a common elasticity that is consistent with the expectation from settlement scaling theory. We also identify a pattern of increase in baseline rates, similar to that observed in contemporary societies, suggesting that this economy did generate modest levels of per capita productivity growth over a four-ce

SUBMITTER: Ortman SG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11225780 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature